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Purpose: Many patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) die after a decision to withhold or withdraw treatment. To ensure that for each patient the appropriate decision is taken, a careful decision-making process is required. This review identifies strategies that can be used to optimize the decision-making process for continuing versus limiting life sustaining treatment of ICU patients.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review of the literature by searching PUBMED and EMBASE.
Results: Thirty-two studies were included, with five categories of decision-making strategies (1) integrated communication, (2) consultative communication, (3) ethics consultation, (4) palliative care consultation and (5) decision aids. Many different outcome measures were used and none of them covered all aspects of decisions on continuing versus limiting life sustaining treatment. Integrated communication strategies had a positive effect on multiple outcome measures. Frequent, predefined family-meetings as well as triggered and integrated ethical or palliative consultation were able to reduce length of stay of patients who eventually died, without increasing overall mortality.
Conclusions: The decision-making process in the ICU can be enhanced by frequent family-meetings with predefined topics. Ethical and palliative support is useful in specific situations. These interventions can reduce non-beneficial ICU treatment days.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrc.2019.01.029 | DOI Listing |
J Med Internet Res
September 2025
School of Nursing, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Background: The spread of misinformation on social media poses significant risks to public health and individual decision-making. Despite growing recognition of these threats, instruments that assess resilience to misinformation on social media, particularly among families who are central to making decisions on behalf of children, remain scarce.
Objective: This study aimed to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a novel instrument that measures resilience to misinformation in the context of social media among parents of school-age children.
JAMA Cardiol
September 2025
Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Importance: Consumer wearable technologies have wide applications, including some that have US Food and Drug Administration clearance for health-related notifications. While wearable technologies may have premarket testing, validation, and safety evaluation as part of a regulatory authorization process, information on their postmarket use remains limited. The Stanford Center for Digital Health organized 2 pan-stakeholder think tank meetings to develop an organizing concept for empirical research on the postmarket evaluation of consumer-facing wearables.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFam Cancer
September 2025
School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is an early-onset cancer syndrome caused by pathogenic germline TP53 variants. Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with LFS may have challenges navigating new romantic partnerships given the significant effects of LFS on multiple life domains that also affect partners (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Sports Med Rep
September 2025
Department of Orthopaedics, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC.
Glenohumeral instability is a common injury affecting contact and collision athletes. Male sex, younger age at time of first dislocation, and contact sports participation are risk factors for recurrent instability. MRI is the gold standard to evaluate soft tissue structures, while CT is beneficial in quantifying glenoid bone loss and identifying on-track and off-track Hill-Sachs lesions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Qual Stud Health Well-being
December 2025
Department of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
Purpose: To increase understanding of the transition from work and day activity services to old-age retirement among people with intellectual disabilities. The research questions are as follows: 1) How are change and continuity present in the transitions to old-age retirement of older people with an intellectual disability? 2) What is the role of the person's own decision-making in the transition process?
Methods: A longitudinal case study approach was used. The main data consist of qualitative interviews from a one-year period with four people with an intellectual disability aged 59-65.